Global warming is about to hit high gear: McKibben

McKibben: The real scientific debate about global ended almost a decade ago, in terms of whether or not humans were warming up the planet, and whether or not it was going to be a big problem. Basically, almost all the world’s climatologists climbed on board with this idea by the late 1990s. Partly that is because the computer models were extremely powerful and we were really able to predict and reflect what was happening. Also, the world keeps getting warmer and warmer and warmer. What’s happened in the last two or three years, and I think about now, finally, is that most of the general public is where scientists were 10 years ago. They are now discovering that it could be a potentially severe problem. It’s good that public opinion has reached this level.

The problem is that science has now progressed considerably further and it has become clear that global warming is an even more serious problem and that it’s proceeding even more rapidly.

..I think when people look back on the Bush administration in relation to climate, the thing that he will be held responsible for by history is less a failure to act in this country which has been enormous, but even more a failure to do anything to affect the trajectory of China and India’s energy takeoff. In 2000, with a lot of work and a lot of money and a lot of effort, we might have been able to nudge that trajectory somewhat. Over the long run that might have had a big effect, but we decided not to do that.

Citizen-Times